Putin the movie: Filmmaker uses revolutionary techniques in biopic of ‘corrupt gangster’

is a “corrupt dictator” who is using Ukraine as a battleground in a bigger , the director of a new biopic of the has said.

And, as the war nears its third anniversary, Patryk Vega warned against any attempt at “appeasement”, which he believes will simply fuel the 72-year-old’s “aggression”.

Set in the near future, the film, simply entitled Putin, uses state-of-the-art technology to chart Putin’s rise from a troubled childhood – suggesting his ruthlessness may ultimately also sow the seeds of both his destruction and the implosion of the Russian Federation.

Mr Vega, also known as Bezaleel, is a Polish filmmaker whose movies include Pitfall (2005) and The Plague of Breslau (2018). Putin is his first English-language film.

Actor Slawomir Sobala portrays Putin using techniques that challenge the boundaries of modern cinematic technology, using digital makeup to create a striking resemblance.

He also recreates historical events, including the 2002 Moscow theatre hostage crisis, the carpet bombing of Chechnya during Putin’s leadership, and the Russian invasion of , while the film also includes Ukrainian footage of ’s invasion.

Putin’s nuclear sabre rattling and fiery rhetoric have led many Western commentators to question his state of mind – but Mr Vega told Express.co.uk: “Putin is not insane.

“He is a profoundly corrupt individual. Like any dictator, he has an immense ego.”

History demonstrated that any empire’s collapse “always starts from within”, Mr Vega continued.

He explained: “The army and government face crises, leading to localised conflicts that often escalate into civil wars, ultimately bringing down the empire.

“Putin vividly remembers the fall of the Soviet Union when, overnight, Lithuania, Latvia, , and Estonia declared themselves independent nations.”

was a “complex mix of races, cultures, and nations”, Mr Vega pointed out.

He said: “It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where one of its republics suddenly decides it no longer identifies with Putin’s and instead leans toward the West.

“This is why Putin creates external enemies – he uses this to unite his people. lacks a cohesive political ideology; its ideology is a twisted hybrid of contradictory elements.

“Putin constantly sends a message to Russians: we must stick together, and anyone who opposes us will be destroyed.”

This, in turn, explained why ’s secret services routinely murdered opposition leaders, businessmen, or even former agents who stood against Putin, Mr Vega emphasised.

He continued: “The West needs to understand that for Putin, is merely a battleground in his larger war against the West.

” is a nation where politics, organised crime, business, and intelligence are intertwined.

“From this perspective, Putin can be seen as the country’s most powerful gangster. He only understands the language of strength.”

He stressed: “Psychology teaches us that backing down in front of an aggressor only fuels their aggression. Therefore, the West must stop deceiving itself into thinking that appeasement policies toward Putin can yield any real benefits.”

Putin was prepared for a long-term war and did not drink alcohol or smoke – but he was not a young man, and his ego “is a problem”, Mr Vega claimed.

Indeed, had the former KGB officer waited three more years to invade , Europe’s energy dependence on would have got to a point where could have been handed to Putin “without a single word of protest”, Mr Vega argued, adding: “The fact that he couldn’t wait underscores his ego issues.”

Looking to the future, and concerning last month’s US , he said: “I believe every autocracy poses a threat, and politics requires balance. When I speak to Americans, they often express concern about the lack of counterbalance in their own political system now that Republicans control both the Senate and Congress.

“However, I think Trump is the right politician to confront Putin. Trump’s own oversized ego won’t let him appear weak. He would never agree to policies of blatant concessions to Putin, as that would make him lose face and appear as a weak leader.

“Putin doesn’t respect weakness. When faced with an unequal opponent, he belittles them – just look at how he treated Macron during their meeting. But he behaves entirely differently when dealing with leaders like Erdogan or Netanyahu.”

Mr Vega considers the world the world in its most unstable state since World War II, with “every scenario is on the table.

He said: “When I hear futurists presenting singular visions of what lies ahead, I am outraged as a sociologist.

“The world is interconnected through politics, economics, and technology, with so many variables that predicting the future is nearly impossible.

“My film Putin offers a unique experience, bringing audiences uncomfortably close to Putin. It exposes the weaknesses of the Russian dictator, showing him in the most intimate situations. My goal is for viewers to watch my film and come to understand the rules by which this man operates. When we comprehend the rules of the game, we can mentally prepare for the future, and our fear diminishes.”

A look at the his film’s trailer underlines the painstaking lengths Mr Vega has gone to in order to bring his central character to the big screen – something he believes was crucial given the subject.

He said: “I developed a pioneering technology called Exis AI, which allowed us to create an ultra-realistic digital version of on screen. This is an absolutely groundbreaking achievement, something no one has ever accomplished in cinema before.

“Obviously, I couldn’t invite to a studio to record tens of thousands of shots for my film. Creating this effect took me two years. I collaborated with CGI studios in Los Angeles and London, involving hundreds of specialists. They all attempted to achieve the effect solely using AI, training the model with online footage of Putin.

“The result was disastrous, as there simply isn’t enough high-resolution data available online to train a model for cinematic quality.”

The bigger problem was that AI “will not be able to achieve the effect we accomplished in Putin for a long time”, argued Mr Vega, because it was incapable of understanding human emotions.

He said: “It’s easy to generate a smiling image of Trump in a frontal view on a phone, but AI cannot create a character for a two-hour film with a full range of emotions, emotional continuity between scenes, and complex movements during dialogues.

“The pioneering aspect of my technology lies in realising that if we rely entirely on AI, we become slaves to it. Once I understood this, I treated AI as a sparring partner.

“I believed in basing creation on human input while using AI as a computational tool to support the creator. This approach enabled me to develop groundbreaking technology, which I am now expanding through companies created specifically for this purpose.”

Horizon Events will open PUTIN on Friday, January 10th, nationally in the USA. It was an Official Selection of the 53rd Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival ().